


The List

by whitchry9



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Episode: The Abominable Bride, Family, Friendship, Gen, Overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5638681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Wherever I find him, whatever back alley or doss house, there will always be a list.”</p><p>How the list came to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The List

**Author's Note:**

> As I said on my tumblr, surprise friends! I am once again Sherlock trash.

The first time Sherlock overdosed, he was nineteen years old, just graduated from uni. Mycroft was 26 at the time, the responsible older sibling who was already starting work with a respectable future ahead of him. And there was Sherlock, so full of potential and promise and cutting intellect that it hurt him to face the world without drugs.

 

But he didn't blame Sherlock. He recognized there were deeper problems, addiction and sensory processing and mental health. There was a myriad of factors that led Sherlock to drugs, and it was not the time to begin pointing blame.

 

Sherlock nearly died that time, the cocktail of drugs he'd injected, ingested, absorbed, snorted, however he'd taken them, wreaking havoc on his system. When Mycroft first found Sherlock in his flat and called the paramedics, Sherlock's pulse was high, temperature high, blood pressure high, everything that indicated cocaine use. Mycroft knew about that. Sherlock hadn't been able to keep his using hidden.

But by the time they got to the hospital, Sherlock wasn't breathing and was no longer responsive.

Those were not symptoms of cocaine use, and suddenly, Mycroft felt utterly useless.

 

He was forced to the waiting room while the doctors took over Sherlock's care, and he vowed that he'd do whatever it took to get Sherlock clean, whatever it took to prevent it from happening again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock got clean, and then he relapsed. And again.

 

Mycroft realized that stopping Sherlock from overdosing was going to be nearly impossible unless Sherlock wanted to stop using.

And Sherlock really didn't.

 

So they compromised.

 

Every time Sherlock decided to use drugs, whether it was at home, or in some back alley, whatever, there would be a list. A list of everything he'd taken, so if he overdosed, at least Mycroft would be able to give some sort of information to the doctors and paramedics.

Mycroft quite liked information. Sherlock knew that.

And as long as Mycroft couldn't get Sherlock clean (he tried, by god he tried, with all his considerable influence, god, he tried) he would keep Sherlock as safe as he was capable.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Mycroft received a text from Sherlock, with no signature and less than perfect spelling and grammar, saying that he was at home and possibly required assistance, Mycroft didn't even bother to grab his coat.

 

When he arrived, Sherlock was sprawled on the floor on his side, a neatly penned list at his side.

 

Cocaine

Ketamine

Caffeine

SSRIs (prescribed, brother dear)

 

Mycroft gritted his teeth, dialled 999, and consulted the chart he had on his phone for situations such as these. Apparently most of the interactions with SSRIs were potentially hazardous.

 

He relayed the pertinent information to the paramedics, and then again to the doctors at A&E, and Sherlock made it through.

 

Mycroft tucked the note away and they didn't speak of it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It happened again (benzodiazepines, caffeine, nicotine, cocaine), and again (cocaine and heroin), and again (LSD, MDMA, cocaine).

 

Then John Watson happened and Mycroft was surprised to find that the drug use seemed to stop. Except for nicotine, Sherlock took up smoking again after a particularly rough case, but all seemed rather well.

 

Sherlock then died for a period and returned thinking everything would be the same. He was sadly mistaken. John was engaged, then married, and he moved out, leaving Sherlock alone in his flat again.

 

He started using again. He told John it was for a case, and Mycroft was almost certain that Sherlock believed himself, deluded himself.

John was not as convinced.

Mycroft wondered for a brief moment, if Doctor Watson had retrieved the list when he picked up Sherlock from the drug den, but suspected Sherlock had kept it tucked away so his precious friend could not see it, lest he be disappointed.

 

Mycroft was all set for another attempt at rehab, perhaps a successful one this time, when Sherlock got himself shot.

 

He recovered of course, the stubborn prat, and the opioids the doctors gave him for the pain and weaned him off of basically took care of withdrawal, which was a relief.

 

Months later, on Christmas day, Sherlock shot Magnussen in front of a dozen witnesses and accepted his fate. After a week in solitary confinement, he was sent off on a plane, to his likely death, but perhaps not. Mycroft always did expect the unexpected from his brother.

 

Sherlock bid John goodbye, something tender in his face that Mycroft hadn't seen since... _Redbeard,_ and watched the plane fly away.

 

Then a familiar face turned up on a television screen, and the plane turned around, with it, Sherlock, ranting about Victorian brides and century old crimes. Mycroft knew what that meant, even if John did not. A mind palace was a place to contain knowledge, not to create intricate fantasies. That had only ever been the drugs.

“Oh Sherlock,” he sighed, and sat down in one of the seats nearby as his brother continued ranting about what he'd discovered.

“... I was immersed.”

“Of course you were.”

He listened as Sherlock invented something about how reading John's blog made him feel smarter.

“Do you really think anyone is believing you?”

“No, he can do this, I've seen it,” John interjected. “The Mind Palace, it's like a whole world in his head.”

Not enough of one that he could create something that hadn't been there before. No, that had been the drugs, and only ever the drugs.

 

“Did you make a list?” Mycroft asked him.

“You've put on weight,” Sherlock deflected. “That waistcoat is clearly newer than the jacket.”

“Stop this! Just stop it,” Mycroft ordered. “Did you make a list?”

“Of what?”

“Everything Sherlock, everything you've taken.”

“No, it's not that, he goes into a sort of trance. I've seen him do it.”

John seemed quite insistent, the poor man. He thought so highly of Sherlock that Mycroft almost hated to disappoint him. As did Sherlock, evidently. But Sherlock thought he was never to return, sent off to his death. Perhaps he'd hoped he'd never awaken, that there would be one final list for Mycroft to tuck away in his notebook. Going out on his own terms, as it were.

 

The paper containing the list flutters over to Mycroft, Sherlock's halfhearted toss not quite making it, and it lands in the aisle between them.

John picks it up, and from the way his expression changes, it must have been a rather impressive one.

 

“We have an agreement, my brother and I, ever since that day.” He doesn't mention that day was the most fearful of his life, or at least until the day Sherlock was shot, or the day he watched Sherlock shoot a man for his best friend. “Wherever I find him, whatever back alley or doss house, there will always be a list.”

 

“He couldn't have taken all that in the last five minutes,” John pointed out.

Mycroft glanced over at his brother, not looking at any of them. “He was high before he got on the plane.”

“He didn't seem high,” Mary commented, attention focused on her phone.

“Nobody deceives like an addict,” Mycroft sighed.

 

From there the conversation strayed from drugs as Sherlock tried to steer the conversation back to Emelia Ricoletti's death. Mycroft didn't have time for this. Moriarty, or at least someone pretending to be him, was out there, and solving a century old case would not help the situation at hand.

Sherlock deflected and Mary hacked into MI5 security and John ranted about how Sherlock could die, and Mycroft sighed.

 

But Sherlock drifted off again and John muttered under his breath and checked his pulse, and sure enough, Sherlock drifted back, fluttering his eyes and looking up at John.

“Miss me?” he asked, and then he was off ranting again, stumbling to his feet.

Sherlock took the list back, tore it up and dropped it to the ground and tried to push past Mycroft off the plane.

“Sherlock...” he said softly. “Promise me.”

Sherlock pushed by. Mary shuffled behind him, then John.

“Doctor Watson,” he said, his back still turned. “Look after him,” he asked. “Please,” he added.

John gave a slight nod and left the plane.

 

Mycroft gathered up the scraps of the list, and tucked them away.

 


End file.
